A satellite communications system typically includes a constellation of one or more satellites that links ground terminals (e.g., gateway terminals and user terminals). For example, the gateway terminals provide an interface with a network such as the Internet or a public switched telephone network, and each gateway terminal services a number of user terminals located in one or more spot beams. With ground terminals geographically dispersed, different spot beams can experience different path delays to the satellites. When overlapping and potentially interfering spot beams are serviced by multiple satellites in the same orbital slot, the path delay differences can contribute additional sources of interference.